I've had a fresh install of windows 8 consumer preview installed since it was released. I've pretty much left it "as is" and only added a few simple apps like chrome so I can't see what the problem is.

Explorer seems to be using something in the region of 25-30% CPU even when the system is idle and nothing else is running. This isn't random spikes, it's constantly this high.

Anyone heard of this issue, maybe with a fix? How could I go further and find out what is causing the problem if not?

I mean, I (rather stupidly) installed an app. I had a missing directx dll so I went on one of those dll library sites. It had an option for an installer and a simple zip with the dll in it. Feeling lazy, I just thought I'd grab the installer which appeared to also install some crap with it, which went on attempting to scan my system. I think it was legit software (after all, the zip option contained a legit directx dll) but it wasn't welcome so I uninstalled it.

I have a feeling that there's a remnants of it left, is there a way to unregister this dll?

I've had a look at the threads relating to explorer.exe with process explorer and there seems to be one thread causing the high cpu usage.

combase.dllCleanupTLSOleSlate+0x3b0

When I kill the thread, nothing seems to go wrong, it simply appears to run as it should. Any thoughts on this?

Hello, i got exactly the same issue without any antivirus expecting build in MSE/Defender and On Windows Version 8 Final … must kill combase.dll through process explorer everyboot else by cpu gets lots of heat After a while and everything is lagging anyway if i don't. If you open combase stack it shows To have something To do with New Windows Push notification Service that i deactivated but No change. How did you fix it? Registred only here because My Special Problem was described just here.

Hello, i got exactly the same issue without any antivirus expecting build in MSE/Defender and On Windows Version 8 Final … must kill combase.dll through process explorer everyboot else by cpu gets lots of heat After a while and everything is lagging anyway if i don't. If you open combase stack it shows To have something To do with New Windows Push notification Service that i deactivated but No change. How did you fix it? Registred only here because My Special Problem was described just here.

thank you

I'm sorry to say that this was a long time ago. It was a Windows 8 Consumer Preview version too, I don't believe I ever fixed it as such, it just isn't a problem any more now that I have RTM